[yardshop]

At my first full-time computer programming job in 1987, we had two NEC-APC computers[1], huge all-in-one units that housed a 10 or so inch screen and 2 8" floppy drives! One of them had a color screen and was connected to an equally enormous 10MB hard drive! My boss used that one. I got the monochrome green one. We had numerous plastic roll-top boxes of disks for various different programs, all written in dBase II: Clients, Employees, Billing and Payroll. As I was coming on they were just being upgraded to dBase III+.

After a couple years I talked them into getting PC clones, but the consultants overruled and convinced the agency to get us an IBM AT with a 60GB^H^HMB hard drive, 2 floppy-only XTs, and a Token Ring Network! The server software used so much space on the AT that you could barely run anything else on it.

Then we had the issue of transferring all of the data from 8" disks over to the IBMs. The consultants wanted thousands of dollars to put each disk into a "toaster" (they called it) that would transfer things to 5.25 disks. I knew it could be done much cheaper, so after a trip to the library to look up serial cable diagrams, a stop at Radio Shack to get some connectors, and a rummage in the office basement to find some old phone cord, I rigged up a transfer cable! The sending program on the NEC was written in their version of BASIC, and the receiving program was written in Turbo Pascal. After several hours at a low baud rate, all of the data was transferred. I got a decent $600 bonus out of it!

[1] http://oldcomputers.net/nec-apc.html

[edit: MB, not 60GB!]

[jhgb]

Clearly the 60GB HDD machine was the superior choice for years to come. ;)

[7thaccount]

Did they mean 60 MB? Seems like a lot for ~1987

[yardshop]

I'm pretty sure it must have been MB!